Orfeo ed Euridice

Around 1509 the young Titian, barely into his twenties, was in Venice working so close to Giorgione that later collectors could not tell the two apart. This small panel, made to decorate the front of a marriage chest, was filed under Giorgione's name for centuries, until a sharp-eyed critic reassigned it to Titian in 1927. The myth plays out across it almost like a strip of film. On the left, in cool clear light, Eurydice recoils from the snake that kills her. On the right, under the red glow of the underworld, Orpheus flees the flames, having just lost her a second time by turning to look back.